Fascists in “Star Wars”: Symbolism, Association, and Bendemption

To quote History.com — “There’s nothing subtle about historical allusion [to Nazi Germany] in “Star Wars”.”

I would argue that it is common knowledge that George Lucas was heavily influenced by Nazi propaganda in the creation of the original “Star Wars” trilogy, most notably visually. Most of the fictional Empire takes uniform design and terminology from the real life Nazis, and Lucas has stated that the Emperor’s rise to power was meant to directly parallel that of Hitler’s. Some shots in “A New Hope” directly mirror Nazi propaganda films, even in moments focused on the protagonists.

(To grab examples from outside the films, the Star Wars wiki and other websites cite a variety of instances of the Empire’s universe-specific racism and references to propaganda of this nature: “You could trust a human, the Empire said; aliens would always betray you”.)

“Star Wars” has always had very heavy parallels to real-world politics; as that History.com article goes on, it mentions the Vietnam and Cold War, as well as the Knights Templar and Ancient Rome. And this is not something that started and stopped with the original trilogy, either. Remember the prequels detailing a Hitler-esq rise to power for Palpatine, and further that J.J. Abrams’ inspiration for the First Order was taken directly from…